Contagious
by Animegirl1129
Summary: In which Eliot never gets sick, except that maybe he does. OT3


Contagious

 _ **First try at Leverage fic, I think. OT3. Hopefully no one is too OOC. Wrote this forever ago, but was never happy really happy with it. Figured I'd just post it, since it was pretty much done. Comments/Kudos are awesome.**_

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"How come you're not sick?" Hardison complains, his voice all rough and hoarse from so much coughing. He sniffles and manages to sit up in bed, the covers pulled up around him even though it's summer and he's got Eliot's favorite sweatshirt on, too - Eliot's hot just looking at him. "It's not fair. You're, like, never sick. In all the time I've known you, I don't think you've ever even had a damn cold."

Eliot shrugs, "Yeah, well, you probably caught it at your Comic-Con thing. All those people in that building, no wonder."

"You were there, too!"

Parker, looking just as miserable, appears from under the covers beside Hardison. "Yeah, no fair!"

"You two are lucky I'm not sick," Eliot counters, balancing bowls of the homemade chicken noodle soup he only just finished cooking, that's only just cooled down enough to eat. He hands each of them a bowl of soup and a bottle of water. "Now, here. I want all of that gone by the time I get back from the store."

"No worries, man," Hardison assures him, breathing in the steam still coming from the bowl. "It's almost - _almost_ \- worth getting sick just to get you to make this soup. It's almost as good as Nana's." Eliot suspects that it might actually be better, given the happy noises both Hardison and Parker are making as they dig in, and that the hacker will simply not allow himself to say so.

Eliot leaves them to their soup and heads out the front door for a quick trip to the store. At this rate, he's gonna need supplies for another batch of soup, and they used up the last of the cough drops and cold medicine earlier this morning, so he needs to restock those. He mentally adds tea to the list, because honey and lemon can help, too, and the sooner he gets them over this flu, the better for everyone involved. They've got a job lined up at the end of the week, on top of the fact that Hardison and Parker are both horrible patients.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out to discover a text requesting orange soda. 'No,' he sends back, because that's not going to get him better any faster, but he does pick up a bunch of oranges to make some fresh orange juice.

He's at the register, debating whether or not he grabbed enough boxes of tissues to last the week, when it starts. A trio of unprovoked sneezes that leave him with an uncomfortable twinge in the back of his throat, a harbinger of the same flu Parker and Hardison both have going on.

"Damn it, Hardison," he mumbles to himself, as he trades cash for bags of groceries and starts the trek back home.

Eliot can't remember the last time he was sick. It's been years - Hardison had called it right, that he hadn't been sick in the time they'd known each other. He thinks it might have been just before he tried to get the Dagger of Aqu'abi back in '05. So, ten years without so much as a cold.

And now the streak is over.

He's extra grumpy by the time he finally does get back to the house they're calling home these days. On top of failing to get rid of the scratchy feeling in his throat and coming to the realization that he suddenly couldn't breathe through his nose, he'd spent a good twenty minutes stuck in traffic, only to realize he'd somehow managed to purchase the one kind of cough drops that Parker despises. So, he'd turned around, purchased an acceptable flavor, and nearly wrecked the car trying to avoid getting stuck in the same traffic jam again. A bag had ripped, oranges had gone rolling all over the back of the car and the sneezing persisted all the while.

So, by the time he finally gets everything inside, he's about ready to drop all of it and go join Hardison and Parker in bed.

But, he can't.

If he doesn't keep those two in line, they'll be sick even longer and that is more of an issue than his stupid little cold. Once he's got everything put away in its proper place, he checks in on them - both sleeping now, empty soup bowls haphazardly balanced on the bedside table. He gathers up the dishes, quietly - nearly drops them when he fights another unexpected sneeze-cough - and leaves them be.

He heads to the kitchen with the dishes and sets about straightening things up, and he pointedly ignores the headache he feels building behind his eyes because he can't be sick, not when they're sick.

By the time Hardison and Parker wake up, he's put away the leftovers, prepped the ingredients for another batch of soup for when those run out, made the orange juice, and sorted out the slight disarray things have fallen into with the interruption in routine (Hardison and Parker usually trade off doing dishes (since Eliot is typically cooking), and they've all fallen behind on usual chores. He's been sleeping on the couch to try to minimize his chances of catching whatever they've got (so much for that), so there's atypical clutter in the form of a pillow and blanket and his half-finished novel, there, amidst the typical clutter of laptops and keyboards). When he finally runs out of things to do and finally sits down for a minute, he feels absolutely miserable (freezing, (but Hardison has his sweatshirt, damn it), tired, and still pissed he got this stupid cold, too), but there's no way he's letting them know that.

"Hey," Hardison greets, when he emerges from the bedroom with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. "There any soup left?"

"Yeah," he answers, gesturing to the fridge, "There's," he stops, fights down another sneeze, "There's medicine on the counter, too."

"Thanks, man, you're the best."

He mumbles something in acknowledgement of the high praise and goes to wake Parker, only to find that she's already up and heading for a shower. Eliot notes that she looks a little more like her old self now, not quite so pale and tired looking, and that she doesn't sound quite so stuffed up when she replies to his question of "Feeling better?"

"Yes!" She happily replies, as she disappears into the bathroom, shedding clothes as she goes. "I should be good for our job on Friday. Can't wait to jump off that building after being inside for days. I'll call the client later, tell them everything is still on."

"Great," he answers, glad that she's feeling better even if he is not. He's not going to be the one to delay this job, he can fight through the stupid cold - it's not like he hasn't worked through bullet wounds and broken bones before. "Still, there's more soup, if you-" Another damn sneeze hits before he can hold it back.

Parker's head appears in the doorway, suspicious eyes carefully looking him over, "Was that a sneeze?" she asks, "You never sneeze."

"Go take your shower, Parker," he growls out. Then there's another sneeze.

"You - you're sick, too, aren't you?"

He sighs in defeat, nods.

"Have you been sick this whole time?"

"No, this just started," he begrudgingly admits. His immune system is rather out of practice, it seems, at least it appears to be much better at keeping him from getting sick than dealing with the fallout now that he's succumbed to the damn flu like everyone else. Why else would it hit him so hard, so fast? "I'm fine."

"Sure you are," she says, calling for Hardison, who appears with a half-finished bowl of soup in hand.

"What's up, babe?"

"Eliot's sick."

"I sneezed," Eliot clarifies, turning to glare at Hardison because sometimes that actually works (he's learned it has little to no effect on Parker), "It's nothing."

Hardison, however, seems unfazed today, as well. "You really don't look so hot, El."

The glaring intensifies as they move together, conspiring about the best way to help.

"C'mon," Hardison finally declares, drawing Eliot out of the bedroom and back toward the kitchen. He parks Eliot in one of the kitchen chairs and goes about making him a bowl of his own soup. "Here," he offers, handing it over, "You should eat something. Don't make me sic Parker on you, man," he warns.

Eliot doesn't particularly feel like eating right now, but Parker emerges from the bedroom soon enough, and persists in badgering him until he does, won't get out of his face until he's finished it. Hardison hands over two pills that Eliot begrudgingly takes (as he's not usually very compliant where medication is involved). He overhears Parker talking with their client, delaying the job until next week. Then, together, they herd him into bed, where he ends up trapped between them, with some old television show playing quietly in the background. He's warm and drowsy, senses dulled as the medication begins to kick into effect, he finds it's not difficult at all to drift off to sleep.


End file.
